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Saturday, 20 December 2014

Differently-abled women feel no safer at public places in MP: Survey - BHOPAL

It seems moving out to secluded or less crowded area is much safer for women, especially those with disability than visiting a busy market, street and using public transport. This has been revealed in a survey conducted by crime against women cell of Madhya Pradesh police.

The survey suggested that women, especially with disability, experience sexual harassment more at public places and in public transport vehicles than the less-crowded areas. Remarks, obscene comments, abuses and touching with bad intention were faced by girls in crowded markets and roads.

The survey also suggested that about 40% harassment and telephonic harassment incidents were not being reported with police as the latter usually tried to solve the issue through their parents, brother or friends.

Additional director general of police (ADG) and in-charge of crime against women cell Aruna Mohan Rao said the survey was conducted to figure out the problems faced by the fairer sex and identify the unsafe areas of Bhopal and Indore so that the police could curb harassment cases.

"The incident of exploitation and assault with specially-challenged women and girls were also reported as most of time anti-social elements took undue advantage of their physical limitations," Rao said.

"To deal with this problem, we are going to organise a 10-day self defence training programme for visually impaired women so that they could fight against harassment," she said. Similar programmes for hearing and speech impaired and physically challenged women would also be conducted in the future, the ADG added.

Police would hold a meeting with superintendents of police (SP) of Bhopal and Indore to tighten security at public places and public transports.

In the survey, women also said they felt more comfortable to share their problems and harassment incidents with women police personnel as compared to males. Hence, more woman police personnel would be deployed at crowded area and busy markets.

"One positive thing that came out in the survey is that most of the women were aware about the women’s helpline numbers and laws," Rao added.